Before the Gifts,
There's Packaging
To Get Through

We Risk Punctures
To Test the Difficulty
Of Unwrapping

By

Suzanne Barlyn

Updated Dec. 6, 2007 12:01 a.m. ET

Few things detract more from the spontaneity and joy of the season's gift-opening rituals than prying open a plastic package with your teeth.

Countless gift items, from consumer electronics to toys, look so appealing while entombed in their clear-plastic clamshell packaging. But extricating an action figure, and cutting thick plastic seams sealed together with heat, can seem like an endeavor worthy of the Jaws of Life. Even less extreme packaging has drawbacks. A cardboard box with a plastic window, for example, may...